Are You a Soft Skills Leader, a Hard Skills Leader, or Both?

Whether in the university classroom or working with business clients in the field, I find the debate continues to rage (with no end in sight). The question driving this debate focuses on the importance of soft skills versus hard skills. There will be those who believe that the harder skills, employed by leaders focused on task accomplishment and getting work “out the door,” are more important than leaders focused on empowering people and building relationships as a necessary pre-condition to accomplishing the work of the organization. What a leader believes will inform the way she interacts with the team and what she, and the team, will produce.

Dr. Jeffrey Yergler

The Ohio State Studies on leadership kicked off the debate with the publication of Stogdill’s (1948, 1963, 1974) research looking at leader behaviors. At roughly the same time, Rensis Likert with the University of Michigan was pursuing a similar path of research looking at leadership behaviors (1961, 1967). Still a third line of research exploring the use of tasks and relationship behavior by managers was pursued by Blake and Mouton (1964, 1978, 1985, 1991). Though using different language, all three research strands pointed to the same themes: leaders and managers focus primarily on relationships or tasks to get work completed.

This slide shows these three research strands side-by-side. You will see that each of these seminal studies and their findings track closely together.

The vertical axis focuses on an orientation to people while the horizontal axis addresses an orientation to getting product and services “out of the door.” So which behavior is the optimum behavior for leaders? There are at least three answers:

Focusing on Relationships over Tasks

There are times when a leader spends a significant amount of time investing in building relationships as the priority over task accomplishment. For example, this would be the case when:

A team is forming for the first time and building team cohesiveness is crucial.

New team members have been added to the team.

The team needs to engage in casting or recasting its vision, mission, and strategic plan.

Experienced tenured team members voluntarily or involuntarily leave the team.

The team is experiencing significant conflict and relational disruption.

There has been a tragedy that must be processed together.

Focusing on Tasks over Relationships

There are periods when accomplishing tasks is the priority over investing in relationships. For example, this would be the case when:

Deadlines are approaching.

Budgetary constraints are putting pressure on the team to come in under budget.

Senior level decisions (in response to external pressures) require a quick change in team priorities and a redirection to another set of tasks and deadlines.

Incorporating new team members or reassigning existing members necessitates learning different job requisites while keeping on existing timelines.

Leaders and managers must operate in a larger organizational system that not only places a premium on production but also, equally, on high levels of employee engagement.

Focusing on both Relationships and Tasks

Blake and Mouton (1991), in the development of their Leadership Grid®, found that the most effective leaders were able to focus on both interpersonal relationships and task accomplishment (which they called the “team management” style). For example, these leaders were able to:

Increase participation levels of the team

Lead through determination and persistence

Act with transparency on issues and challenges

Provide clear pathways to specific objectives

Listen to the feedback and ideas of others

Follow through on commitments

Maintain openness and flexibility, and

Stay engaged with and involved in the actual work process.

This slide shows what I believe is a Best Practices approach to Blake and Mouton’s (1991) Leadership Grid.

This group of leaders was able to cultivate and maintain positive relationships with team members while also getting work and tasks accomplished. When leaders had a team management style, they valued relationships and they valued performance. One was not sacrificed for the other. There was no need to be all about relationships (the soft skills) or all about task accomplishment (the hard skills). These leaders knew the importance of both and so fueled both continually.

This approach demands a much greater investment of time. Those leaders and managers accustomed to addressing only work structure and flow, policies and work processes, and monitoring production, would need to move their positive engagement with people to a much higher priority.

Leader Behavior and Reality on the Ground

Despite the fact that research points to the value of leaders who are balanced between a concern for people and a concern for production, reality on the ground paints a contradictory picture. Jeffrey Pfeffer (2015) in his new publication, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time, makes the point that despite the millions of dollars spent on leadership and management consultants, workplaces remain toxic and dysfunctional. Leaders and managers, and the larger organizational systems in which they operate, continue to create destructive work environments that produce high levels of disengagement and low levels of morale. This reality is also supported by Gallup’s excellent research on engagement levels both nationally and globally.

A primary reason is that, at the end of the day, leaders and managers have been and continue to be measured by what they produce and deliver and not by the engagement levels of their reports and teams. As noted by Pfeffer, leaving a trail of damaged human beings appears to be worth the tradeoff of getting work out the door on time and on budget.

Two Solutions

A. Leaders and managers must operate in a larger organizational system that not only places a premium on production but also, equally, on high levels of employee engagement. Furthermore, the upward mobility of these leaders and managers must be based on compelling data that point toward strong levels of production and high levels of employee engagement and morale.

B. If #1 above is to become an organizational reality, the senior-most leaders must put the necessary structures and priorities in place that select, train, and advance only those women and men who have a consistent track record of getting work done while also thoughtfully and carefully building and maintaining authentic relationships which cultivate engagement, elevate morale, and strengthen human dignity.

Dr. Jeffrey Yergler spent 22 years working in senior leadership positions in large non-profit/sectarian organizations before moving to full-time academic instruction in 2007, at Olympic College. At Olympic, Jeff served as lead faculty for organizational leadership and resource management. In 2011, he joined GGU and teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses, also serving as the chair of the Undergraduate Management department. Jeff also serves as the Academic Program Director and the 2017-2019 Nagel T. Miner Research Professor.

Jeff is a principal for Integer Leadership Consulting, a firm that specializes in providing solutions and pathways that address leadership management training, executive coaching, team building, employee engagement, growing leaders in developing nations, and organizational culture and core values. He is also actively engaged in publishing book reviews and original research addressing the factors that build and sustain employee engagement.